Alden Mason

Alden Lee Mason was born on July 14, 1919, in Everett, Washington. He took a mail-order cartooning course at age twelve, his first drawing instruction, and after graduating from Mount Vernon High School in 1936 (some sources give 1937) enrolled at the University of Washington intending to study zoology and entomology. A chance watercolor lesson from the painter Ray Hill, given while Mason was hitchhiking home from campus, redirected him toward art. University of Washington records give his Bachelor of Fine Arts as 1942, though some gallery and biographical sources cite 1945; he completed his Master of Fine Arts in 1947, also at the University of Washington.

Mason joined the University of Washington art faculty in 1949 and taught there for more than thirty years, retiring from teaching in 1981 and receiving the title of Professor Emeritus in 1982. His paintings drew serious critical attention in the 1970s with the Burpee Garden Series, transparent oil-wash abstractions that he later extended through an inventive acrylic squeeze-bottle technique that became his signature method. He continued to paint and exhibit in the Seattle area for the rest of his life.

Mason died on February 6, 2013, in Seattle, at the age of 93. The Seattle Times reported that he "succumbed to complications from flu and pneumonia," a cause of death corroborated by KUOW's obituary coverage.

Regional historians and institutions have long treated Mason as one of the Pacific Northwest's most inventive and prolific painters, citing his many exhibitions and solo shows across the region. Critical attention has centered on his technical range, from the transparent oil washes of the early Burpee Garden works to the bolder, squeeze-bottle acrylic paintings that followed, and on his three decades as a University of Washington teacher who shaped generations of regional artists. The 2021 retrospective Alden Mason: Fly Your Own Thing at the Bellevue Arts Museum, mounted after his death, reaffirmed the scope of that body of work for a new audience. No verbatim critical assessment from a named critic in a major outlet could be confirmed for this profile.

Mason's auction market was for decades a regional one, concentrated in Pacific Northwest sale rooms. That changed in 2022, when his 1970s Burpee Garden painting Sweet Encounter sold at MBA Seattle Auction House for a reported USD 189,000 including fees, on a hammer price of about USD 150,000, a result press coverage described as "an absolute record" for the artist. Earlier that year, a work from the same series, Winter Zinger, had sold for a reported USD 162,500, and Orange Goofer sold for a reported USD 150,000 at a Seattle auction house, though a separate auction-house price list puts the Orange Goofer hammer figure at USD 120,000. A 2023 report from Cascade PBS on the rapid rise in demand for Mason's paintings also referenced a tip to federal investigators tied to the surge in market activity; available sources do not describe the substance or outcome of that matter, and it should be treated as an open, unresolved reference in his market history rather than a settled fact.

Mason's market has no catalogue raisonne, and authentication runs through the artist's estate and its representing gallery, Foster/White in Seattle, rather than through a published scholarly catalogue. His current auction record rests on a single, high-profile 2022 sale at MBA Seattle Auction House rather than on a deep run of comparable results, so collectors should treat that price as a data point tied to a specific sale context rather than a stable market baseline. The 2023 press reference to renewed scrutiny of his market, alongside the sharp jump in prices since 2022, is a reason to lean on the estate and its gallery for provenance rather than on auction momentum alone.